Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources CTY online courses & school

We have been looking at some of the CTY courses (specifically reading/writing) and they look really interesting. But are these meant to supplement regular school? Are they intended for homeschoolers? I'm trying to get an idea of how extensive the commitment is for a student to take a course during the school year. DD9 has brownies, piano and gymnastics, which take up 3 afternoons per week. She wants to do CTY, but I'm concerned about overscheduling. She still needs time to just be a kid.

Can anyone share their insights about this?

Thanks!

My DD8 did a Gifted Learning Links (Northwestern's equivalent) last summer. (The one she picked was a grammar class.) It was time-intensive enough that I discouraged her from doing one during the school year, even though it took her fewer hours than the course guide suggested.

My DD has a very low tolerance for scheduling, and a high need for downtime, though. She swims twice a week, and that about maxes her out for after school activities.

My son qualified for CTY but we didn't see anything we liked, so we are doing one through Northwestern online. It's really difficult to do an online courses while they go to school. I honestly think it is best suited for homeschoolers. It doesn't work well with our busy schedule.

Thanks for your insights! That's kind of what I was thinking. It's nice to hear my instincts are on target.

Has anyone taken an online CTY course, and if so could you provide your opinion?

We are thinking of having DD13 take an Intensive Studies online course during the summer (the summer course at Johns Hopkins we wanted filled up).

DD7 takes CTY for the second year now for math. As she is overscheduled as it is, finding time for the math isn't so easy but I feel worth it. She zips through the curriculum when she does have time, and we do 20 minute sessions. We do a 20 minute session about once a week and it takes her 5 months to get through the accelerated math course. I sign up for 9 months and do a postponement when we go on holidays or I know she cannot get online for a few weeks due to other stuff. So we get more than 10 months with the postponements and she will be able to finish another grade, since she will have more time as we get to June and July.

The problem for us in doing the CTY math is that it feels like a "bridge to nowhere." I'm not sure I want my son to do third grade math in 3 months, then 4th grade, then 5th grade... It looks boring too to do all of that repetition. We are doing a little bit out of a few math workbooks daily, which works for us. The CTY courses are also very expensive- like $800 for one course for 3 months.
He can take courses for gifted children at our local community college in the summer, but not until next year. Grrr!! I'm scrambling to find things again for this summer.

Our community college had gifted summer courses last year, but dropped them for this coming summer. I suspect insufficient demand from lack of good marketing - DD looked at the descriptions, said, "but I don't know how to do archaeology or geometry!" and flatly refused to consider them.

I'd do the CTY Chinese course, but it's $900. For that kind of money, she can practice with her grandparents. Heck, for that kind of money, she could have a one-on-one native speaker tutor all summer long, in the absence of grandparents.

We're doing Camp of Mom this summer. Singapore Math (as enrichment and depth, not necessarily to get ahead), Story of the World as audiobook, Singapore Science (again for enrichment), and language arts focusing on root words / puzzling out unfamiliar vocabulary and on writing (5 paragraph essay and research paper). DD is a good writer when she has a structure to go by, but flounders without one, so she's highly motivated to learn some structures to launch from.

we did cty math several years ago for a replacement curriculum for the classroom in elementary school.
It was excellent for that. and the "teacher" online was useful at times. it was better than just the EPGY because we got a grade that the school accepted. two years were done in one year and the acceleration was kept after she got into an accelerated gifted school. the statistics in that program is far ahead of anything shes done since. It would be a burden to do in addition to a regular school curriculum.
There was a writing one that we did over one summer that was also excellent. the online person was more a guide than a teacher. the other kids in the class were from all over the world and they had lots of wonderful literary criticism for one another. this gave her a big boost in her creative and descriptive writing and helped quite a bit with writing mechanics and learning the underlying reasons for the mechanics rules to exist in the first place. again not a thing to add on for a busy kid. But a great one one for a kid that loves writing and wants to learn some stucture for it and get broad feed back on their work.

It could also be us- my kids accept doing mom homework out of a little workbook but they balk at doing it on the computer. They are both on the swim team and swim at different times, so it's very easy to have one do a little workbook waiting to swim while the other swims, and vise versa. That would be harder on the computer.
My son is procratinating on his final GLL Northwestern online project. It's a fun project but who has time to do that??
Camp of mom sounds great! That makes the most sense. We did a one-week chess camp 2 summers ago, but it was not for the faint of heart. It was literally 9 am to 5 pm with only a 30 minute break for lunch, which was inside the classroom! Almost too much for my active kids!